axman, on 2024-September-15, 09:36, said:
Another perspective:
For a society to expect to succeed it is important its law is just. A corollary is that it must not be anti-justice. For example: A law that to be satisfied which requires a person to successfully calculate a difficult task (for every occasion) when that task is beyond the skill, such law is anti-just. Then consider that the task must be completed within a fraction of a second to succeed.
L16B is such law. To expect to satisfy 16B it is necessary to ascertain the meaning of UI and then use that calculation to select one's action, all within the duration of one's normal tempo. It takes me weeks, even decades to figure out what UI means. Doing what 16B instructs is beyond my ability. (Yet my ability is better than most.)
To expect to satisfy 16B it is sufficient to satisfy 73C - "carefully avoid using the information from the UI."
Will you succeed 100% of the time? Of course not. We all fail, we all have our blind spots.
But if you carefully avoided using the UI and this time there was a LA less successful than the one you took, that was demonstrably suggested by the UI, then you were unable, on this hand, to see it. Which means that however long you took trying to solve Law 16B,
you would have failed.
Therefore, it is not necessary to worry about 16B as a player. Just follow 73C, and eat your failures in good conscience. And let the directors use 16B to assign the correct score when you do fail.
"It takes me weeks" - then it didn't "demonstrably suggest" anything, did it? Yeah, it happens a lot - which is why most UI doesn't matter, because the causes of it either don't suggest anything or are ambiguous or match the AI from the auction. The ones that do matter are clearly obvious - a slow penalty double is removable; asking how many hearts 1
♥ promises shows more hearts than that; a slow signoff after keycard says "I'm only off one, but we might have two losers anyway"; a fast rebid of the suit one has shown but heard that partner didn't get is a wakeup call;... The ones that "take you weeks" aren't a problem.(*)
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In other forums Kit Woolsey has spoken of L16B. His policy is he copes by doing what he was going to do sans UI availability- in his lifetime being challenged as many as a handful of occasions. I find his assertion of success very credible even though I believe there is more to his policy than its on the face simplicity.
I believe he is actually capable of "except on a handful of occasions" ignoring the UI. He is a top-class expert, with tens of thousands of these situations under his belt. Of course, he is very clearly Playing Bridge The Right Way instead of Following The Law, which as I said seems to be a point of pride at the absolute top level. But his skill is such that it is The Right Way (according to the Law) almost always.
The problem is that he explains it as if it's so obvious that everybody can do it, and so the people that look up to him "just ignore the UI" too. And they aren't as good, and they aren't as capable of seeing their bias as Kit is, and so they "use the UI" more often than he does. And the ones that see "just ignore the UI" and read "you would always have 'done the right thing' even without the UI, so go ahead" as a sop to their "is this truly ethical?" concerns (those that have them, I guess). And the As who hear the players they look up to saying "just ignore the UI" and do what their mentors do - and they're not as good as even the wannabe pros, and they definitely aren't as capable of seeing their bias as Kit is. And...
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I do not concur with the assertion that L16B is for adjudicators rather than players. It is addressed to players so it has that weight. A weight that is unbearable
and anti-justice.
From someone who claims that anything that isn't a call or play in tempo (including a mispull or a "move to the box" out of turn) is communication, and therefore UI, I find that - interesting. No wonder "it takes you weeks" to work out what LAs the UI demonstrably suggests - because so much of it is "nothing. Nothing at all. I pulled 2
♠ and 2
♥ came with it." If it has to mean something, then yeah, it could take weeks to work out what that something is.
Obviously 16B is a Law that players need to follow. But if you follow 73C, you won't violate 16B, unless you have a braino, in which case you would have failed in your 16B consideration as well. It really is that simple. And frankly, if you do, you treat it the same way you treat any bridge mistake that lowered your score - "I had a plan, it was wrong, I won't make that mistake next time, next hand." Because
if you follow 73C, you are on the correct side of ethics and it's just bad bridge, just like any other "play for the 60% line you saw when there was a 90% line you didn't."
Now this next is my bias - and I absolutely admit that I go too far. But every time I see "I need to work out all the LAs and whether the UI demonstrably (or reasonably, back in the day, or...) suggests doing what I know to be the right call on this hand (using all the information)", I read "I don't want to 'carefully avoid' using the UI. I want to 'carefully avoid'
being penalized for using the UI." I choose to (silently) judge people who want that.
Either you can point to the UI, point to what it shows, and demonstrably suggest one or a class of action(s) over another, pretty much immediately, or you can't and it doesn't (to you). Congratulations, you have 16Bed. Now carefully avoid using the UI and make your call.
(*)I still remember taking 20 minutes to explain to a B player "score stands. But know that if you were more experienced, we would rule against you for use of UI. We just believe that to you, it didn't say what it would to an A player." She was upset that she was being treated differently than "someone who could play", even though it was to her benefit - a laudable opinion. But after the lightbulb moment where she did see what the UI said, and why, had she understood that at the table, it suggested the call she took, I said "so that's why we ruled as we did. If it takes 20 minutes for you to see it, it didn't suggest anything *to you* at the table". But I also said "but now you do understand, and you will see it next time, and we will hold you to the A standard."
When I go to sea, don't fear for me, Fear For The Storm -- Birdie and the Swansong (tSCoSI)